I never heard back.
As the public debate over the complex grew, some professional organizations, including the Architectural Association of Kenya, also raised objections to building in the park. More important, the people themselves spoke out. In fact, the more the government urged them to stay quiet, the more they raised their voices. I was thrilled when men and women dared to send letters to newspapers and weekly magazines in support of what I was doing. I was even more impressed that most felt courageous enough to use their own names and not to sign the letters “anonymous.”
“This is where I escape from the crowded [housing] estates over the weekend or during the holidays,” one letter-writer said about the park. “A green belt in the city creates a meaningful contrast to the concrete jungle,” wrote another. Others recalled with pleasure their visits to the park after a day's work, or at lunchtime, or on the weekend. They complained that the skyline of the city would be obscured, the tower would block out the sun, and traffic would clog the entrances to the park, while trees and grass would be lost when the building went up. Children also wrote. “Uhuru Park is where my parents take me over the weekend,” one said.
Many letter writers tied the fight for the park to the issue of democracy in Kenya and the government's reluctance to heed the people's wishes. “I have one suggestion to make,” read one letter published in the Weekly Review. “The names of all MPs who vigorously bulldozed this project forward should be engraved prominently in the complex. This will allow future generations to know who robbed them of their favorite recreation facility, Uhuru Park.” Another letter writer asked: “Our leaders, where is your sense of priority, your pride in the people you lead? When we write in protest we are called ‘few,’ ‘ignorant,’ and ‘disgruntled.’ … Democracy is of, by, and for the people.” Yet another argued: “Kenyans should be allowed to debate matters freely without threats and abuse from our leaders. Their views and opinions should be listened to and respected because Kenya is acclaimed as democratic; this should not only be on paper but should be seen in practice.” Although I knew from the press that the people were behind me, I never called for a street demonstration against the complex and I did not expect anyone to come to my rescue or protest in public when the government vilified me.
During the course of the struggle over the complex, I felt strongly that I was doing the right thing—popular opinion notwithstanding. So, I didn't experience fear on a daily basis. I don't tend to invite challenges, but I meet them. And once I do, I stick with it. I know the situation is not going to be resolved overnight, and I don't hurry to meet a second challenge until the first is concluded. That, perhaps, has been my strong point. I have seen time and again that if you stay with a challenge, if you are convinced that you are right to do so, and if you give it everything you have, it is amazing what can happen.
Nonetheless, it was hard at times to be the focus of so much negative attention and in the glare of the public spotlight. It was also very destructive for my children (Waweru and Wanjira were in the United States, and so had to follow the events from a distance), and for my family and friends.
Some days, as I walked from the Green Belt offices at the corner of University Way and Moi Avenue down the street toward the Khoja mosque, I could see people I knew crossing the road to avoid me. Or I would meet friends on the street and they wouldn't want to stand and talk because they were afraid to be associated with me. Some of them would ask me, “Why are you putting yourself in this situation? It's not your land. Why are you bothered?” And I would reply, “Because after they are done with what is owned by the public, they'll come for what is mine and yours.”
This was the heart of the issue. Even though the immediate struggle was over the park and the right of everyone to enjoy green space, the effort was also about getting Kenyans to raise their voices. I was distressed at the audacity with which the government was violating people's rights, quashing dissent—often brutally—and forcing men and women from their jobs, especially in the university and the civil service. Ordinary people had become so fearful that they had been rendered nearly powerless. Now, they were beginning to reclaim their power.
Even though the debate had reached the floor of Parliament and the public arena, the fight was far from over. On November 15, at an official ceremony, ground was broken for the complex in Uhuru Park. At the end of the month, I sought an injunction in the Kenya High Court to halt construction, but the case was thrown out on December 11. By this time, the independence of the judiciary had been so compromised that the decision did not surprise me. I appealed to the acting attorney general, who was not sympathetic. While I lost the legal battles, these actions nonetheless helped generate publicity—I issued a press release about the court's decision—and we garnered more support from Kenyans. The controversy over the park, my court case, and the comments of President Moi and others regularly featured on the front pages of Kenya's newspapers and the international media were beginning to cover the story.
Still, the personal attacks continued. In early December, President Moi made his first public comments about the Times complex and the controversy. He gave the project his seal of approval and offered his opinion that those who opposed the complex had “insects in their heads.” On December 12, Jamhuri, or Republic Day, when Kenyans celebrate independence from the British with a public holiday, the president gave a speech, in Uhuru Park no less. He condemned the Law Society of Kenya and the the National Council of Churches of Kenya for perceived criticisms of the government, and singled me out for opposing the complex. Moi also suggested that if I was to be a proper woman in “the African tradition”—I should respect men and be quiet.
Prompted by President Moi, who wondered in that speech why the women of Kenya had not spoken out against this “wayward” woman, the leadership of Maendeleo Ya Wanawake, our former National Council of Women colleagues and now a faithful branch of KANU, criticized me for “having belittled the president and the government.” They held rallies and press conferences to denounce me. At one point they suggested that I had “gone astray and should seek guidance from [my] fellow women.”
Not long after, the frustrated president declared that from then on all foreign assistance to Kenyan women's development had to be channeled through state organizations. This often made fund-raising for the Green Belt Movement difficult in subsequent years.
The furor increased when members of KANU asked for me to be expelled from the party and one claimed in a public speech that the Green Belt Movement had “done nothing that Kenyans could be proud of.” This statement led to chants of “Remove her! Remove her!” from the crowd. MPs called for Green Belt to be banned because the sources of its finances weren't public (to his credit the attorney general dismissed their request). The movement and I were even barred by a local MP from his constituency, located around
Mount Elgon near the border with Uganda, because of my supposed disrespect for the president. In late November, I asked the Third World Network—a Malaysia-based association of groups and individuals engaged in development-related projects—to issue an international action alert to its members to urge the Kenyan government to stop harassing the Green Belt Movement and me. I was becoming an outlaw in my own country.
I knew that the government was using me as a mirror in which other women would look at themselves. They were being asked to decide if that image was who they would like to be. Because I couldn't go into the women's hearts and tell them, “It's all right. I haven't done anything wrong. It's them, not me.” It was okay for me to be called crazy and told I had insects in my head: That is the way people using their own mirror saw me. But I offered women a different mirror—my own. What is important, indeed necessary, is to hold up your own mirror to see yourself as you really are.
Ten days before Christmas 1989, just when we thought things could not get more challenging, the government decided to evict the Green Belt Movement from the government offices it had been operating from under the auspices of
the National Council of Women of Kenya. Jomo Kenyatta's administration had been very supportive of civil society in general and the NCWK in particular, and had given the NCWK office space many years previously. When President Kenyatta died and President Moi took over, we were moved from the house we were occupying and given an office next to the Central Police Station. This was a very old, wooden building, part of which was used as a book storage depot by the Ministry of Education. Our workspace consisted of subdivided offices and a meeting area in one long block. Although it was somewhat ramshackle and a little cramped, the situation was satisfactory.
Technically, however, the building was owned by the government, although it had forgotten we were there until I inadvertently drew attention to our address in a press interview. The government was outraged that it was housing this wayward woman and her organization. The day after the president's Republic Day speech in Uhuru Park, the police officer in charge ordered us to vacate the building—within twenty-four hours. I appealed the eviction order, but was told the decision was final. We weren't even allowed to take the dividers that separated our offices. When we looked for new space, our reputation, unfortunately, preceded us. Landlords either refused to give us office space because we were now blacklisted by the government or set the rent so high we couldn't possibly afford it. This left me with two choices: I either had to abandon the Green Belt Movement or move it to my house in South C.
The government seemed determined to do all it could to take an ax to the Green Belt Movement, and I was equally determined not to let it. Throughout the struggle over Uhuru Park, our work with communities around Kenya was still continuing, and millions of trees were still being planted. So, I used my own money and some Green Belt funds and converted my small bungalow and garden, where I had grown sweet potatoes and grazed two goats, into an office for our staff, which then numbered eighty. I had to add an underground water tank because we didn't have enough water for sanitation and I needed two extra toilets. The day we moved, police ransacked the old office, and threw papers and books out of the building.
As 1990 began, I decided to make a peace offering: I issued a statement thanking the president for abiding by the rule of law and allowing free speech to air the differences over the Times tower complex. My aim was not to be deliberately confrontational but to encourage movement on the issue. I also wanted to return the focus to our primary job, which was planting trees.
Just a few days later, however, the registrar general ordered the Green Belt Movement to provide its audited accounts for the past five consecutive years. I saw this as another attempt by the government to deregister the movement and make its activities illegal. But
I wanted to beat them at their own game. When I discussed the situation with Vertistine Mbaya, who as Green Belt's treasurer oversaw all the accounts, she said, “Let's send them ten years of accounts!” And we did. In the letter that accompanied the records, I asked the government to supply me with one year of its audited accounts of the ruling party, since I knew that KANU was not regularly audited. As you might expect, I never received a reply to that request.
If the office next to the police station was cramped, it was nothing compared to our accommodations at South C when all the staff moved in. While I kept my bedroom and Muta, my only child still living at home, kept his, the rest of the house became the general workspace. My office operated out of what used to be Waweru's bedroom and everyone else worked in the area we created outside, or in the living room, or in the two other bedrooms. None of these rooms is large! The receptionist sat at a table by the entrance to the living room and we made our meals and brewed tea in my kitchen.
I felt badly for Muta, who was a teenager at the time, an age when you want to bring friends home. I was sorry I couldn't provide more space for him than just his tiny bedroom. Muta understood the situation, although he'd have been happier not having to share his home with eighty Green Belt employees! In later years Muta worked for Green Belt and grew to be proud of his contribution and the part he played when the movement needed space.
We stayed this way for nearly seven years. It was crowded, but the situation worked, more or less. However, in 1991, we faced a disruption. Some months after the move to South C, a friend of mine who was a building contractor brought to the house a young man who had been involved in political activities in the university and was expelled. “He is wanted by the authorities,” my friend said, “and so is undercover. He can't work in areas that are too exposed to the public. Construction work would be too visible.” He asked me to help him. “He can knit sweaters and tablecloths, and that's how he makes a living at the moment. Perhaps you can help him earn something. He's desperate.”
Like many young people in Kenya at that time, this youth had few skills, he'd been thrown out of the university because he had been involved in a strike, and he was considered a dissident. He was worried about being seen with anyone and operated under a pseudonym. I felt sorry for him, because he was so young. “I want you to sit next to my desk,” I told him, “and help me with whatever I'm doing. We'll keep you away from the others at the moment, because we don't want them to alert the police.” He was delighted with this plan. Unfortunately, in time he became so comfortable and got to know the staff sufficiently well that he tried to convince them that I wasn't paying them enough and that the working conditions were bad. “You should get out of there or she should get you a bigger office,” he told them.
I had always been very straightforward with my staff. “If we can perform well,” I informed them, “we will raise the money, and you will be paid. However, if I don't have it, I can't give it.” They knew that no one had any pensions. “All I can give you is a monthly allowance,” I said. “I'll try as much as possible to give you one month's notice if our money runs out and I can't raise it. But you need to give me one month's notice as well if you want to leave.” I had put all this in a letter, and everyone had signed it.
The result of the young man's agitation was that one morning I woke up to find that forty-five members of the staff had walked out and some had formed a blockade outside my front gate. They were stopping everyone from coming in and telling them to go home because there was a strike on. What was worse was that Muta and I were prisoners in our own home: We couldn't go out and nobody could come in to see us. So I called the police, who came with officials from the Ministry of Labour to mediate the situation. The officials asked for the staff's contracts and demanded to know what I paid them. While I was talking to them, the policemen were looking around my house. They were astonished. “You mean you work here—with all these people?” they asked. “Where do you live?”
“I live in one bedroom,” I replied, “and my son lives in the other one. The rest is the office.” The policemen knew very well that the government had thrown us out of our offices and that we had had to relocate to my house, but the smallness of the space and my decision to keep the Green Belt Movement going impressed them. “Why would these people be so ungrateful?” they asked. “Look at the salaries they're being paid. They're even getting more than we are!”
After investigating, the officials found that there was nothing to warrant a strike and that the strikers were acting illegally in stopping Muta and me from entering and leaving our house. The strikers were amazed. They thought that my reputation as a troublemaker meant that the authorities would support them. Meanwhile, members of the press, whom the strikers had called, assuming they would take their side, were also unsympathetic to their claims against me. My biggest disappointment was that the organizer of the strike was the young man whom I had protected and sheltered. Naturally, I couldn't take him back after what he had done. I don't bear him any ill will: I think he was simply a mean-spirited person.
We worked at South C until 1996, when some friends visited and were astounded that the Green Belt Movement and I were squeezed into such a small space (by this time Muta was studying in the United States). While the Netherlands Organization for International Developme
nt Cooperation (NOVIB), a long-time supporter, wanted to help us purchase a permanent office, they did not have enough funds for this purpose. But they were quickly joined by other friends of the movement—the United Kingdom-based Tudor Trust and American philanthropists Steven and Barbara Rockefeller and Joshua Mailman. Together, they agreed to buy a house on Kilimani Lane near the Adams Arcade, not too far from the center of Nairobi, for the main Green Belt offices.
The other organization interested in helping us was CARE-Austria, but they were receiving their funds from the Austrian government, which did not want to purchase a building with a nongovernmental organization. As we looked for office space, we saw a house in Lang'ata that we decided could be a place to provide training, while we looked for another house to serve as our offices. The resources CARE-Austria had set aside were adequate to acquire the home in Lang'ata. The owners, a British couple, were pleased that Green Belt was to be the new owner because they knew we would not pave over any of the large garden or cut down the trees. In a demonstration of the Austrian government's confidence in us, it immediately had the building registered in the Green Belt Movement's name.
Naturally, I was very happy when everyone left my house—as were they, I'm sure. Afterward, that bungalow felt so huge I didn't know what to do with all the space! The day the staff moved into the house on Kilimani Lane, they basked in the sun, ate the guavas that were ripe on the trees, lay down on the green grass, and enjoyed Kilimani's roominess. This continues to be the Green Belt Movement's main office.
Unbowed: A Memoir (Vintage) Page 22